Chapter 4: Intensive Training

When Maryam had recovered from the six strokes of the riding crop and her breathing had returned to normal, broken only by a few sobs, the eunuchs did not release her from the whipping bench. The Head Eunuch carefully explained to her that she had let him down and made his training look inadequate. For that offence he would punish her, and there was no time like the present. Turning to the small rack of whips he selected one the likes of which Maryam had never seen before. It looked quite incapable of inflicting much pain. A flexible little leather plaited strip, very supple, like string. It was no more than eighteen inches long and did not look at all threatening.

The Head Eunuch moved behind her and there was a very high pitched whistling followed by a quiet cracking noise as of a twig breaking. Then the pain hit her mind; the thigh on which the whip had landed felt as though the leg had been amputated just above the knee.

Wheeee - Crack!

The other leg joined the first in oblivion and the total agony at the bottom of both thighs caused Maryam to pass out yet again. Cold water poured over her shoulders and head soon brought her round and she was unshackled. Marched into the harem proper, she was told to stand in the corner of the room with her back to everyone else and to remain there until told to move. As the cold water dripped from her hair on to her six-striped buttocks it stung whenever a drop landed on one of General Mustapha's markings. The pain in her legs, behind the knees subsided slowly and one of Maryam's first thoughts was that she would never underestimate a whip again, nor did she ever again want to taste the kisses of the "little worm". The Head Eunuch came over to her after half-an-hour or so and asked how she felt.

"Master," was her wise reply.

"And you will never, ever bite a Master's manhood again?" he asked.

"No, Master," she replied, biting back the inclination to retort that she hadn't bitten it, and certainly not on purpose.

"Well, I don't suppose you will, for if you do I shall work along the back of your legs from the ankle to the buttock crease, then over the buttocks, and slowly up the back to the neck with my little friend. He has the advantage of giving maximum pain for minimum damage," was the Head Eunuch's warning, "He would take many, many strokes to flog you to death if you ever did that again. We would wait for you to regain consciousness each stroke, so it might take two days to finish you. In the end he would crush the back of your head, but if you were lucky he might break your neck."

Maryam could not imagine what the pain of such a treatment would feel like; she only knew it was to be avoided at all costs.

"You are to go to the Master again tonight. I hope you will behave better this time. Now, into the bathroom with you and use the douche."

"What's a douche?"

"It pumps water into your vagina to wash out the General's semen."

"Why does it matter if the General's sticky is left in me?"

"Well it doesn't with the General, but it will with some of the men who use you."

"Why? It seems an awful lot of trouble for nothing."

The Head Eunuch roared with laughter and said, "Very funny. Now pay attention. I don't know why they didn't teach you this in the Golden Palace harem."

"No, seriously, why bother with all this nonsense? There isn't that much sticky left in me when the General uses me there and surely it will come out when I next go to the toilet or have a bath?"

"By then it may be too late."

"Too late for what?"

"Too late to prevent..." the Head Eunuch was suddenly silent.

Then he asked gravely, "You really don't know?"

"Don't know what?" asked Maryam, by now quite exasperated.

"Oh no. How did that happen?" he wondered, more to himself than to her.

"How did what happen?" she asked, still mystified.

So the Head Eunuch explained to this fifteen-year-old who was being trained as a whore for the Emir's guests and who had now been fucked several times in all three entrances, exactly what the consequences might be if semen were left in her vagina after intercourse. Because nobody was responsible for her in the Emir's harem, not only had she not been given the elementary bedroom training of any other harem-raised woman in the land, nobody had even thought to tell her the basic facts of life. She hadn't had her periods explained to her, and thought it was some injury or disease that afflicted her, and other women from time to time. Like a primitive savage, she did not connect sex with babies and when asked, said she had never thought about where babies actually came from.